Covid-19 kills – but so does lockdown

Just over six months ago Boris Johnson gave the British people one very clear instruction: ‘you must stay at home.’ It was impossible for anybody to anticipate the unintended consequences of those five words and quite how much pain and anguish they would unleash.

Through a mixture of emotional coercion and relentless scaremongering millions of people in need of medical help followed the PM’s order to the letter. They stayed, many in intense pain, at home and didn’t seek the care they needed.

Every Tuesday morning the Office for National Statistics release their weekly information on deaths. For months it has told the same story. Significant, sustained levels of excess deaths are happening in the home every week.

There are repetitive and draining discussions about grand strategies wherever you look. But thousands more than usual are dying in their own homes and nobody raises an eyebrow. To avoid any more unnecessary deaths, we must start asking difficult questions.